NOOSA HEADS

Unfortunately as we prepared to leave Maroochydore, Alessandra was feeling a bit under the weather,so she sat in the car and suffered while I took the tent down on my own. We were soon on our way though, after everything was dried out, concentrating on the road. Actually I see now that on some occasions we were too focused on the route forward and finding it rather than what lay either side of the road.

Looking back, even at this early stage of our Australian odyssey, a lack of planning was showing. I had worked out an overall route and looked at what might be interesting to see on the way but I didn't actually have any day to day strategy, beyond thinking that I needed to cover an approximate distance each day. This was based on arriving back in Alice Springs, we were due to pass through there on our way to Uluru, on 2nd June to catch the Ghan. As a result of this I kept driving when there were surely occasions we might have turned off the main road to stop and see some of the less touristy places en-route.

Having said that, we went to Noosa without staying there; of course Noosa is a tourist Mecca. We arrived about midday, parked in the shade and had a wander around the town to find tourist information. In May this place was already teeming with visitors. One good thing about our advance planning that we commented on many times was that it was just as well we came in the low season. In fact I suspect that Australia is such a popular destination that the number of visitors doesn't vary greatly throughout the year. If there is a reduction in overseas visitors in their winter I wouldn't be at all surprised if the numbers are not made up by local pensioners wending their way around.

We had been looking for information about Backpackers or other budget accommodation as Ale's cold was getting worse and we thought we might spend a couple of days sleeping in a bed rather than on the floor. We visited a Backpackers here in Noosa but their price was well beyond our budget. We wandered onto the beach which was beautiful and surprisingly busy, although Wayne had mentioned that it was still warm enough to bathe even in the autumn. We didn't feel even slightly like taking a dip so made our way round to Noosa Heads.


We parked and found ourselves a nice spot for lunch al-fresco. Australia is a pretty al-fresco sort of place.This matched our attitude to eating and we were much more likely to eat outside than in for the rest of the trip. Here we found a tabletop type seat, that is a low table that serves as seating as well, spread out our picnic, and fed ourselves looking out at the square rigger in the photo. It's a shame we didn't take more photos here as the sea was beautiful shades of blue and green and I cannot begin to do it justice in words.

After lunch we set off to have a little wander around the headlands. This place was really worthy of a bit more effort but we were still feeling somewhat indisposed by our colds and the weather was very hot when we arrived. We consoled ourselves with a short walk to the first of three lookouts, where we were entertained by a local chap discussing fishing, while he was distracted by the women walking round behind us.

We had a little bit of trouble finding our way away from Noosa and I'm not sure if we made it back onto Bruce's Highway but we were soon steaming on up the coast. We did get a bit of a hurry on as we wanted to camp by the sea again and it was getting a bit late so looked like we mihgt arrive after dark